


Will There Be Stars

by sternfleck



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Anal Sex, Cannoli Kylux, Choking, Force-Null Ben Solo, Force-Sensitive Armitage Hux, Knifeplay, Kylux Positivity Week, Kylux Positivity Week 2020, M/M, Masochist Armitage Hux, Military Kink, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Power Bottom Armitage Hux, Power Dynamics, Rey-Hux Force Bond, Service Top Ben Solo, Soulmates kinda, awkward kink negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:27:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25076122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck
Summary: General Ben Solo of the First Order was born a disappointment to his family, with no command of the Force. Armitage Hux, the Supreme Leader’s apprentice, should be Ben’s rival for power in the Order.But General Solo can’t keep away from Hux, not when Hux is beautiful, dangerous—and so viciously compliant for him in private life.For Kylux Positivity Week 2.0, Day 7. Prompt: “Role Reversal."
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 28
Kudos: 100
Collections: Kylux Positivity Week 2.0





	Will There Be Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the Blonde Redhead song of the same name. The line: _"Will there be stars on our crown?"_

The General wants him so much it hurts. Watching him train, watching him fight for the Order, he’s mesmerising—crossguard lightsaber shimmering through the air, slicing through armor and flesh with bloodless precision. He’s almost supernatural, like a presence out of a dark dream. The General wants him more than he wants power. More than he craves the approval of the Supreme Leader, or of the family he left behind.

But Armitage Hux—Force adept, Master of his Knights, and apprentice to Supreme Leader Snoke—is not the General’s to command. Not outside of private life, at least.

In private life, though, the story is different. The risks of their connection are clear—in the First Order, any intimacy is weakness, a boon to one’s enemies. But General Ben Solo has never been a man to live in fear.

And Hux, of course, has nothing to fear from any enemies. His power is unmatched. Ben tries not to think too often of how much sheer power runs through Hux’s veins, through his every cell. It drives Ben to distraction and gives him a dizzy feeling, like staring into a star.

Tonight, as the _Finalizer_ draws ever closer to the _Supremacy_ and their inevitable audience with the Supreme Leader, Hux has invited Ben to his quarters, ostensibly to discuss the issue of the scavenger girl and her hunt for Skywalker. But lately, when Hux invites Ben to stay late, there’s less discussion and more of that dangerous intimacy that feels less like weakness and more like forbidden strength. 

Hux looks more wrung-out than ever, the black bacta strips on his new scar standing out in sharp contrast to his space-pale skin. He’s messy-haired and gaunt—he’s barely eaten since the destruction of Starkiller Base three days ago. As though Starkiller is Hux’s to grieve, and not the sum total of General Solo’s years of work for the Order. As though the man Hux ran through with his saber on Starkiller’s bridge was his own father, not Ben’s.

Five years ago, Ben killed Hux’s father. A blade to the throat, a sheet of blood cascading down his black uniform. An open airlock. Then Ben took Brendol Hux’s place as the First Order’s flagship General. It was a simple enough transaction. But Ben didn’t do it purely for his own gain. He’d seen how Hux, even with all his boundless power, still flinched at Brendol’s raised hand.

When the deed was complete, Hux was too proud to admit Ben had done him a favour, but now Hux has returned Ben’s favour with his strike against the Resistance, against Han. They’re as even as they’ll ever be. Hux’s debt to Ben has been repaid.

Despite this triumph, Hux looks waifish, lost. He sits at the edge of his bed with his cloak draped over his lap, his gloved hands clenched around the gaberwool. The lining of Hux’s cloak is embroidered with stars, a map of the Galaxy Hux rightly expects to rule. Somewhere on his cloak, the Hosnian system still gleams in silver thread, an anachronism. But here, where the _Finalizer_ drifts in space, the light from the Hosnian cataclysm won’t arrive for seventy thousand years. By that time, the First Order will be only a legend, and the Jedi will be long-vanished. Exterminated, as they deserve. 

“She’s found Skywalker,” says Hux bitterly, reading Ben’s thoughts. “She’s gloating. Nasty little fanatic. Why couldn’t I have someone of substance nattering on in my head all the time, instead of a desert brat from kriffing Jakku?”

Ben has been pacing the room, occasionally kicking at Hux’s rug with the scuffed toe of his boot. He’s not one to cling to the past, but losing Starkiller, losing his life’s work to the Rebels, to his worthless smuggler of a _father_...it makes him want to borrow Hux’s lightsaber and swing the plasma blade to destroy everything in sight.

Instead, Ben makes himself stop his pacing. He collapses back on Hux’s bed with a huff, then turns on his side to look at Hux. Hux is still lost in his fantasies of revenge against the scavenger. His fingertips are pressed to his scar, worrying at the newly healed skin.

If Hux is vain enough to hate the scavenger for scarring his face, surely he knows it won’t help the scar to pick at it? But Ben keeps his mouth shut. He isn’t Hux’s nursemaid, and it would only upset Hux to be reminded of his scar. At any rate, Hux is bearing up well after taking a lightsaber to the face. That isn’t an experience Ben Solo ever wants to endure.

“Skywalker must be celebrating,” says Ben in answer to Hux. “He finally has the prodigy padawan he’s always wanted.”

This mess with the scavenger girl brings back grim memories of the days before Ben Solo joined the First Order and found his place in the Galaxy. When he was nothing, a worthless disappointment to his family of Rebel scum. Ben was supposed to be special, the son of war heroes, the nephew of the Galaxy’s Jedi saviour.

Instead, he wasn’t special. Not at all. Everyone looked at him and saw only what was missing—the strength in the Force Ben failed to inherit. Now the girl has emerged from the desert to truly take Ben Solo’s place.

Let the Rebels have her. She’s nothing. Her power is nothing compared to Hux’s.

“She _is_ a prodigy, is the worst of it! She should never have been able to resist my interrogation. She cast me out of her mind with no effort at all. If she had training...if she could be turned to the Dark Side...” 

“We don’t need her,” says Ben too quickly. “She’d bring trouble to the First Order.”

One of Hux’s worried hands has moved from his scar to his hair, tugging at a strand that has fallen out of his neat, Order-regulation style. He glances at Ben, his eyes full of tense despair.

“I don’t know what to do, Solo. I’ve never met anyone else like me. I never wanted this. You know I never wanted a rival. I never wanted a kriffing _scar_ on my _face_. She’s written her Rebel chaos all over me. I’m contaminated.” 

“Stop fucking with it, Hux. It will heal. You’re a warrior. Scars happen.”

“Not to _me_. I don’t _lose_ , Solo. I _never_ lose. You saw how she humiliated me. Left me in the snow, bleeding out like a common ‘trooper. Weak.” 

Ben had been sick with fear when he found Hux in the forest. Even half-conscious, Hux had called out to him with the Force, his presence a luminous secret in the black of Ben’s thoughts.

All their worst fears came true in one night. To lose Starkiller was barely endurable. The loss of his father hit Ben harder than he expected, though his father’s part in the destruction of the Starkiller weapon is far more difficult to bear. If Ben had lost Hux, too...and now Hux is ashamed that Ben saw him injured and beaten. As though Hux’s wounded valour didn’t make Ben fall for him all over again.

“Shut up, Hux. You’re not weak. Weakness is surrender. We’re not surrendering. We’re not giving up. I’ll build another weapon and blow up every Rebel planet in the Galaxy. You’ll slaughter every last Jedi. The Supreme Leader wills it. It’s like I said in my speech. The Galaxy will bow to us. Nothing can stand in our way.”

Hux sighs, pink lips parting. There’s a flicker of hope in his eyes for the first time in days. Ben wants to kiss him, but Hux is so brittle, so restrained and controlled...and he’s still injured from his battle in the snow. He might not want that from Ben, not yet, at least.

The hope in Hux’s eyes stabilises into a fierce resolve. “Tell me about Skywalker,” he orders. “He must have vulnerabilities. If I have the right intelligence, I can exploit his weaknesses through my connection with the girl.”

At times like this, Ben wonders if he’ll ever escape his origins. If Hux were anyone else, Ben would feel used for his birth connection to the Resistance and the Jedi. But Hux uses everyone. It isn’t personal. He’s only being practical, methodical. He’s always single-mindedly thorough, and the information Ben can offer him could be the key to their shared victory.

“Skywalker believes he’s a failure. He couldn’t stand it when I started talking about joining the First Order. He and my parents. They all blamed themselves. Idiots.”

“How odd. Narrow-minded. Perhaps Skywalker will convince the girl of his own ineptitude.”

“He’s a zealot,” says Ben. “He only believes in the power of the Jedi. The Light. Everything else is meaningless to him. If the girl has found him, he’ll indoctrinate her. She’s already lost.”

Hux pauses. He pushes his shoulders back in his dark tunic, which is like Ben’s First Order tunic, but without any stripes to show rank. Hux exists outside the hierarchy, a singular presence. He drops his hands to his lap, back to the cloak laid across his knees.

“You know, Solo, the girl believes she can save me. In her mind, she holds an expectation that, in the end, I will turn to the Light.”

Ben scoffs, outraged. He rolls onto his back, spreading out his arms on Hux’s dark sheets. The idea of Hux having any Light in him is an absurd one, even coming from a teenager who aspires to become a Jedi.

“That’s stupid. You? What, she wants you to sweep her up in your arms? To be her good boy? Rebuild the fucking Jedi Order and have no attachments together forever?”

Hux is staring straight ahead. His cheeks are flushed around the sharp new line of his scar. “The nature of her thoughts do tend in that direction. Or, if not her thoughts, her dreams.”

This information baffles Ben. Hux? With a woman, a girl? Who could look at Hux and think he would...?

“She _knows_ , right? Knows you’re—what we do together?” 

“I haven’t cared to explore her opinions of our private habits.” Hux wrinkles his nose. “I try to block her out of my mind. I don’t want her watching us. She’d tell the Rebels. Your mother. We can’t have them taking advantage of our, ah. Shared enterprises.”

That’s Hux. All business, speaking in clinical euphemisms until his lust takes over and he’s pliant in his General’s arms. Ben thrills at the memory of how Hux gives himself up every time, moaning Ben’s title, his name.

“Shared enterprises,” Ben repeats, teasing. “Like taking over the Galaxy.”

“Precisely,” Hux says, though they both know that isn’t what he meant.

Now Hux has unclipped his lightsaber hilt from his belt. He’s fidgeting with the wires, the crossguard elements. Ben half expects him to take out the cracked kyber crystal and start chewing on it, the way Hux chews his nails when he’s not wearing his gloves.

It’s a sort of madness, Hux’s connection to the Force. Ben saw it in Skywalker, too, though his uncle lacked the redeeming qualities that make Hux so intoxicating to Ben. The Force leaves Hux at all times on the edge of chaos. He’s asked to keep his composure in spite of the whirl of impressions and visions that assault his senses. For Hux, who loathes all things inefficient, disorderly, or unpredictable, his power is almost a punishment. He tries to control it, as he tries to control all things, but in the end, Hux is only a conduit for the greater power of the Dark Side. Unlike the rest of the Galaxy, the Force can never truly be bent to Hux’s will.

Ben ought to be envious of Hux. Hux has the power Ben Solo should have inherited. Ben is the grandson of Darth Vader, after all, and Hux is the son of a military man and a long-dead kitchen maid of uncertain origin. But Ben doesn’t envy Hux. Hux’s Force powers are astonishing in their breadth and their strange beauty, but there’s a sadness to them, too. Hux’s Dark destiny hangs on his shoulders like a curse, far heavier than his star-mapped cloak. 

“Give me that,” Ben says roughly, tugging the cloak away from Hux’s lap. “Your map is out of date.”

Hux glances up from his lightsaber hilt, catching Ben’s meaning right away. His eyes brighten. “Ah, yes. Restore its accuracy. You’ll use your little knife?”

Ben inclines his head in a perfunctory nod. He slips his monomolecular blade out of his sleeve, and arranges Hux’s cloak inside-out on his lap, until he finds the region that hangs at Hux’s lower back when he wears it. The silver embroidery is thickest there, where there are the most stars, with the most important worlds of the Galactic Core labelled in minuscule Aurebesh.

Of the five Hosnian planets, only Hosnian Prime is labelled. Ben works at the silver stitching until the thread gives way under his blade. He yanks the stitches out, clenching his teeth, until he’s left only dark gaberwool in the place of the Hosnian System. The dark of space. Now, thanks to Ben, only asteroids are left where the New Republic government used to spread its poison through the Galaxy.

Closer to the edge of the cloak’s lining, there’s a bright dot of silver that represents Starkiller Base. Ben wrinkles the cloak on his lap until he finds what he’s looking for. His throat aches as he looks at the dot labelled “SKB-1,” at this last remnant of the engineering effort he thought would be his great legacy. His eyes sting, and his fingers are clumsy on his knife. But as he raises the blade, a hand covers his own. Hux shakes his head.

“Leave it,” Hux hisses. His voice is fierce, but his mouth trembles. “I want to remember. They won’t get away with this. We’ll destroy them. Soon we’ll look like two fools for making such a fuss over one lost battle.”

Is it the Force that leads Hux to know the right things to say? Or is Ben Solo just weak for him, for his vision, for his certainty that, whatever their losses, they'll win in the end?

This time, whether it’s the right time or not, Ben can’t resist moving to kiss Hux. He slips his knife back into the sheath on his wrist and slides his hand up Hux’s nape, pulling him close.

Hux’s eyes shut and his lips open. So he does want this tonight.

For a suspended moment, Ben takes in the sight of Hux like this, when he’s waiting to be kissed. His pale eyelashes, the bow of his lips. The sharp new scar that turns his beauty deadly. Then Ben brushes his mouth over Hux’s, licking at Hux’s bottom lip, until Hux makes a small noise and opens his mouth wider for Ben’s tongue.

Hux falls into him, slim chest to Ben’s broad one, and for a moment it’s as though none of the disasters of the past days have happened. It’s like it always is between them. Hux in his arms, begging without words for Ben to distract him from the overwhelm of the Force. He’s so soft and small, powerful enough to annihilate any enemy but still somehow fragile, in a way that makes Ben feel important, like he has a duty to protect Hux.

He kisses Hux until they’re both breathless, hands all over each other, tearing at uniform fastenings to get to warm skin. Hux moans into his mouth at every touch. He’s so sensitive, still, even after all the times Ben has done this before. He falls back and pulls Ben with him, on top of him, rutting against Ben’s thigh when Ben pins him down and kisses his neck.

“ _Yes_.” Hux’s voice is a wrecked whisper. “I thought you’d never—I’ve been wanting—for _days_ , Ben. Since I woke up in medbay. I wanted you. All I wanted.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ben brings his hands to Hux’s throat, stroking his thumbs down the column of it. “You have to tell me when you want this. I can’t read minds.”

“I _always_ want—oh, press harder, Ben. Please, General. Please, sir.” 

So Hux wants it this way tonight. Their old game, where Hux is one of General Solo’s common soldiers, for him to command. Where Hux has a place in the Order, a clear role, and no longer has to concern himself with mysticism Ben will never know or understand. In their game, Ben has the greater power. Hux gives himself up willingly, with trust.

Below him, Hux’s eyes are bright, his breathing shallow. His pulse is strong where Ben’s thumbs rest against the sides of his neck. For Hux, Ben has learned the correct places and ways to press, to leave Hux dizzy and needy without injuring him.

But now Hux is already injured. He holds his shoulder differently where the scavenger girl stabbed him, and the bowcaster wound in his abdomen is still tender. Ben saw the raw pink of the wound in the medbay when they changed Hux’s bandages, on that first day after Starkiller’s destruction, when Ben waited at Hux’s side whenever he wasn’t working the bridge. The memory makes him hesitate, though Hux can endure any rough handling.

“Please, General.” Hux’s pale eyelashes flicker, not coy but desperate. He’s unwinding, going pliant under Ben’s touch.

“Connect to me with the Force. So I’ll know if I go too far.”

Hux twitches his nose in disdain. “You won’t go _too far_. Even with my injuries, I’m still the most powerful Force user in a generation. Besting me is beyond your capabilities.” 

It’s not really out of care for Hux that Ben wants Hux in his head. Really, it’s not. It’s just that there’s nothing better than the way Hux’s Force feels in his mind and on his skin, like Ben is united at last with what should have been his all along.

But Hux is his, and that’s almost good enough. Even if Hux is being demanding, sneering and tugging at the front of Ben’s First Order uniform in impatience.

“You’re too careful, Ben. Choke me, I need it, I need you.”

Ben sneers back. If Hux wants General Solo, that’s what he’ll get. All the commanding authority Ben uses on his subordinate officers and ‘troopers, to put Hux in his place.

“Look at you like this. Under me, acting like a bossy slut, not a soldier.”

Hux’s eyes widen, and he turns his face to the side, trying to hide it in the dark sheets. But his cock is hard against Ben’s hip. The flush on his cheeks highlights the black bacta strips dressing his scar.

Ben presses his thumbs hard into Hux’s neck, over the major blood vessels. At the same time, he kisses Hux’s face. His soft jaw tastes of shaving soap. Hux squirms under him, wanting more, wanting it rougher, but Ben denies him. It’s only when Hux pours into his head in a cold rush of Force-energy that Ben can feel the desperation, the surrender, the _ecstasy_ Hux feels at finally being powerless and captive and held. 

“Good soldier,” Ben whispers against Hux’s lips. In his head, in his entire body, he feels the rush of Hux’s pleasure at the praise—and more than praise, Hux’s sense that he finally has a clear role in the Galaxy, a place where he belongs. This is where Ben belongs, too, with the Force flowing through him and Hux pliant in his arms.

Hux gasps when Ben releases his neck, blinking away tears. “Yes,” he whispers. “Ben. More.”

“Petty Officer Hux. You forget yourself, giving me orders. This is insubordination.”

Hux narrows his eyes at the false title, even as he spreads his legs for Ben, wrapping his heels around Ben’s thighs. He speaks imperiously again. After all, Hux can’t speak any other way.

“I want your hands on me until I forget everything that’s ever kriffing happened to me, Solo. The Force gives me no mercy. The least you can do is be rough enough with me that the Galaxy’s worth of voices in my head are quiet for the night.”

“Give it to me,” Ben offers. “Give me what’s punishing you. Pour it into my head.”

He’ll take any touch of the Force he can get, even if it hurts. If Hux would only wrap the Force around Ben’s neck, like what Hux begs for from Ben’s hands...but Hux never does. Hux is too preoccupied with his own concerns to notice what Ben wants, though he can surely see it in Ben’s head.

“That’s not how this works,” Hux spits. “I’m the one who bears the burden of the Force. You’re not gifted. You’d never be able to comprehend my condition even if I showed you. It would be a waste of my effort to try.”

“You said you wanted me.” Ben suppresses a snarl. He’s learned self-control while rising through the ranks of the Order, but at times, he still has the urge to indulge in one of his old bursts of outrage. “Now you want to order me around and fight. I can’t read your mind, Hux. Stop acting like I can figure you out without you telling me.”

Hux sighs. When he closes his eyes, his eyelashes are pale against the black strip covering his scar.

“Forgive me. The Light is tormenting me without relief. I don’t mean to take my distress out on you. You’re too useful.”

 _Useful_. From anyone but Hux, this would be faint praise. But from Hux, it’s everything. Hux places usefulness above all other traits in evaluating the few people he allows in his inner circle. His Knights—Phasma, Unamo, even Mitaka—have been chosen for their Force-sensitivity, but Hux has also killed plenty of other Force-sensitives across the Galaxy. The Knights have survived because they’ve made themselves useful, serving Hux.

That’s what Hux wants from Ben, too. Service. The service of taking Hux’s control away from him for just a little while, just until Hux comes all over himself in a climax fierce enough to make the lights flicker.

“I’ll be useful,” Ben vows. Useful, like when he destroyed the Hosnian System, when he ordered his great laser to make dust of the planet that had been his home for some years in his youth. He said _fire_ and thought of Hux, his bright hair, the hot crackle of his lightsaber when he spins and lunges to run an enemy through. One day, one day _soon_ , Hux will be the Order’s leader, and Ben will bow before him and serve forever, with all his weapons and his soldiers at Supreme Leader Hux’s command. 

“That’s my General,” Hux whispers, seeing it all in Ben’s head. Smiling his downturned smile. Tangling his fingers in Ben’s too-long hair.

He draws Ben’s mouth down to his, and pulls Ben’s body close with a broad stroke of the Force down his back, like icy water on Ben’s skin. Hux tries to struggle out of his clothes, and Ben tries to undress himself too, but they’re so caught up in kissing that the process is clumsy and slow.

This is how it always happens with Hux. When Ben used to sleep with other people, it was meaningless, fun, over in the morning, with no words exchanged after. But with Hux, it feels like Ben is finding new pieces of his own soul in every conversation, every shared vision, every kiss. Hux would blame it on the Force—every day is like this for Hux, some mystical adventure he gets to take for granted—but Ben knows it’s more than just Hux’s powers fuelling this connection between them. Ben’s mother is strong with the Force, after all, and that wasn’t enough to make his parents’ marriage work.

No, this is different. This is more than mere romance. This is cosmic, violent, worshipful, as though predestined. Hux’s body fits too perfectly against Ben’s. When Hux enters Ben’s head, their minds fit together even better than their bodies. And when he’s kissing Hux with wet hungry dark kisses, Ben would rather be here than anywhere else in the Galaxy. He could spend forever like this, devouring Hux’s tremulous noises, tugging Hux’s plain uniform away to expose all of his pale warm skin.

When Hux has managed to undress Ben down to his blastproof vest, he pulls back from their kiss. His nostrils flare, and his mouth tightens in displeasure.

“This is hideously inconvenient, you know. Why do you bother with it? I can stop projectiles with nothing but a glance. You know I’d never permit anyone to harm you.”

Ben knows. But Hux isn’t always where Ben is, and enemies are everywhere in the First Order. Hux tends to forget most people lack his skill of ascertaining everyone’s loyalties by peering into their heads.

Instead of replying, Ben unfastens the side of the vest and shrugs out of it and his undershirt, leaving his chest bare. 

“It’s a crime to hide this under your armour,” Hux hisses, running chilly fingertips over every curve of Ben’s musculature. “The Order ought to hold a court martial. A tribunal, to punish you for denying me your body.”

“I’m not denying you,” Ben points out, arching his back into Hux’s touch. “You have me, Hux.”

Every stroke of Hux’s fingers goes straight to Ben’s cock—he _needs_ Hux, needs the soft heat of Hux’s thighs, so close, so inviting. He pulls down Hux’s jodhpurs and tears Hux’s undershirt open down the centre. Hux’s eyes widen at the show of strength. He wraps his legs tighter around Ben’s, his erection hot through his underwear. 

Below his undershirt, Hux is bandaged on his shoulder and around his abdomen, long black strips like a corset wrapped from his hips to just below his nipples. It makes a terrible feeling rise in Ben’s insides to imagine what Hux’s skin will look like there when the bandages come off.

Despite his strength with the Force, Hux’s body is soft, fragile-looking in a way that makes Ben want to protect him. But Ben couldn’t protect him from the scavenger girl. Hux couldn’t even protect himself. The terrible Light wells up between them at the worst of times, dragging Hux to a region where Ben can’t follow, and every time, Ben can only pray Hux comes back whole. So far, he has. But this time, he’s not the same as he was before.

Ben’s war is an abstract thing, a war of charts and numbers and interminably boring months between significant battles. But Hux’s war is physical, blooming on his delicate body like a map of horrors Ben hopes to never understand. Because he can’t understand, he kisses Hux instead, over his bandages. Hux winces, but not from pain—it’s the gentleness that disconcerts him. 

“Ben,” Hux pleads, or warns. His cock is leaking into his underwear, wet against Ben’s stomach. When Ben kisses down to it, pressing his mouth to the hard shape of it under the cloth, Hux twists in the bed. The cry that comes from his mouth is harsh, pained.

“You’re so hard, Hux. You want me. Do you want my mouth?”

“I want your cock. I already said. Choke me and hold me down and fuck me, Solo, now.” 

Ben isn’t sure Hux is ready to take him. If he could look inside Hux’s mind and feel all the places in Hux’s body where it hurts, he would know how much pain to give to satisfy Hux, but avoid hurting him enough to slow his healing. Hux will have to be fit to face the Supreme Leader, for there will no doubt be punishment for letting the girl escape.

Punishment, too, for allowing Starkiller’s destruction. If Ben were a harder man—if he’d been raised in the Order instead of with the soft, merciful traditions of the New Republic—he’d punish Hux himself for that. Hux was supposed to be the first line of defence for the weapon, but instead, he’d been distracted from his post.

He’d gone off chasing Han, to repay Ben’s debt to him. To destroy one of Ben’s last connections to the hated past he’s struggled to escape. And for that, Ben can’t punish Hux, or even fault him. He can only tug down Hux’s underwear and kiss him again, lapping away the wetness where Hux has dripped on himself.

“Ben, please, I want to come on your cock.” Hux twitches his hips up to Ben’s mouth, contradicting his own words. “It was all I could think about in medbay. I must have shocked the droids with my fevered ravings.”

“No one would guess how needy you are in private,” Ben murmurs. “Is it the Force that makes you like this? All your Dark Side passion?”

Hux pushes up on his elbows. His mouth quirks as he stares down at Ben.

“Something like that. Come on, General. Be good. Take me. I’ll be sure to stop you if anything hurts. I want to preserve my strength to face Snoke just as you do. After all, it won’t be easy to hide our treasonous alliance from my thoughts.”

As he speaks, Hux strokes Ben’s hair. “You really should trim this,” he adds. “You look like a filthy junk trader, not a First Order soldier.”

This, at last, is the impetus Ben needs to convince him Hux’s mouth is better when it’s shut or moaning. But as much as he resents Hux’s comments on his appearance—it's not like Hux is Order-regulation-perfect now, with his scar—he thrills at Hux’s hint that what they have is a true alliance, something powerful enough to keep hidden from the Supreme Leader.

When Ben kisses Hux, pressing his big nose to Hux’s scar, he thinks of Hux’s future as the Supreme Leader of the Order, hoping Hux will read his mind and see. And Hux must see, because he kisses Ben more hungrily, biting his lip, pulling him close with the Force so that Ben’s erection is against his.

Ben arranges himself between Hux’s legs. Hux lifts his hips and keeps them there with the Force, spread open for Ben. He waves his thin fingers and summons a bottle of lube from the low cabinet next to the bed. The bottle drops onto Hux’s chest, near his wound from the lightsaber stolen by the scavenger—the blade that once belonged to Ben’s grandfather. But Hux doesn’t wince at the blow to his injured body. He only waits while Ben squeezes the bottle, slicks himself, and pushes his fingers inside Hux at last.

Hux is hot inside, as always, and tight, though he opens for Ben like he’s accepting a piece of him that went missing. He tosses his head back, baring his throat. His hair falls out of its pomade and down over the bacta strip on his forehead.

Ben leans as far up Hux’s body as he can get, to suck bruises into the spots on his neck where Hux asked him to press his thumbs. Hux shuts his eyes tight and hisses through his teeth as Ben adds another finger. He’s gorgeous like this, wrecked by his battles but still begging for Ben’s hands.

“Show me your strength,” Hux whispers when Ben has him open on four fingers, thrusting carefully to avoid Hux’s prostate and drive his desperation higher. “Make me forget the Light. You're the only one who can. I’m ready for you. Take me apart.”

With the most gifted Force user in the Galaxy underneath him, asking so nicely, how can Ben refuse? His cock pulses as he eases inside Hux, losing himself to the tight heat of him. He can’t stop himself from moaning. Hux, though he’s overcome with pleasure too, takes the opportunity to grasp Ben’s hair and give it a wicked tug.

“That’s my General,” Hux murmurs when Ben moans louder.

Ben doesn’t thrust right away. Instead he waits, letting himself adjust to the feeling of being held inside Hux. But Hux, as usual, is impatient. He releases Ben’s hair and, with raised hands, drags a sharp stroke of the Force down to Ben’s hips, making him move. Hux curses when Ben’s cock hits him inside, right where they fit together best. But he uses the Force to move Ben’s hips again, snapping Ben’s body hard against his own. With every thrust, he gasps or swears.

He’s thrusting harder than Ben would move, using Ben shamelessly for his own pleasure. The selfishness of it makes Ben’s face flush hot.

Then, with the Force, Hux tugs one of Ben’s arms out from under him—he has to fall on his other elbow to keep from crushing Hux. The Force drags Ben’s arm up to Hux’s neck, laying Ben’s forearm across Hux’s throat.

“Are you going to fuck me hard while you pin me down, or do I have to keep using the Force on you to get what I want?” Hux’s tone is breathy, deadly.

But the arm Hux has claimed with the Force is the arm where Ben still wears his sheathed knife. Ben doesn’t have to pin him with his arm on Hux’s throat. Hux squirming under the threat of his blade is far more enticing than Hux gasping for breath could ever be.

Ben presses the button at his wrist, unsheathes the knife. He lays the little blade across Hux’s throat with a lunge and a snarl that makes his hair fall sweaty and dark into his face.

“Good soldiers say ‘sir,’ Hux. Do they not teach you that in Force training? Your strength with the Dark Side doesn’t give you a right to be arrogant, soldier. You obey your General. This is what you asked for.”

Hux’s eyes widen, and he moans and thrusts up to take Ben’s cock to the root. “Yes, General.”

Ben moves with him, matching Hux’s rhythm roughly and without relief. Hux has never been more beautiful than right now, scarred and mussed and wan under Ben’s knife, in so much pleasure he can’t even make noises or clench around Ben’s cock. He can only take what Ben gives him, relentlessly.

“I’m close,” Ben warns, mouth at Hux’s neck where the knife isn’t. His hand shakes as he sucks a bruise into Hux’s skin, and the blade bites into Hux’s soft throat, just the edge of it, harmless, but dangerous enough to make Hux exhale and thrash in Ben’s arms and come.

His come is hot where their stomachs are pressed together, Hux’s cock pulsing out his climax between them. Ben waits for the crackle of tubes blowing out in the lights above the bed, but the lights stay on, and it only takes a few more thrusts before he’s coming too, inside Hux where he’s tight and soft and perfect, like he was made for this, for Ben.

When Ben regains enough of his self-command to stop fucking his come into Hux with every new spasm, a movement in his peripheral vision startles him. He glances over to Hux’s desk, which is messy at the best of times, strewn with ashes and artefacts and texts from Dark Side masters of old. But right now, everything on the desk has risen from the surface in a cloud of debris, hovering in midair.

Hux makes a helpless noise, drawing Ben’s attention back. His face is still pinched tight, his hips quivering, hands tightened into fists against Ben’s chest. He’s still coming, his orgasm strong enough in the Force that it’s making his belongings levitate.

It’s almost funny, but Ben doesn’t laugh. He only watches Hux. He ignores the clatter of Dark Side artefacts returning to the surface of Hux’s desk in favour of gazing into Hux’s hazy eyes when they open again at last.

“Ben,” says Hux. His voice is remarkably steady, but strained with something that, if Ben didn’t know better, he might call care.

Ben returns his knife to its wrist sheath and pulls out of Hux, wiping his cock on the inside of Hux’s thigh. He shivers, too sensitive. Hux shivers, too, at the hot wetness dripping out of him.

“That was good,” Ben says, unnecessarily. Hux can look into his mind to see how he enjoyed himself.

He almost hopes Hux will. Ben wants Hux to see everything that’s in his mind, to understand and know Ben completely. Ben’s family never understood him, nor did his friends. No one in his life ever even tried to explore the uncertain shadows of Ben’s mind, until he joined the First Order and met Hux. And with Hux, it’s effortless. Hux doesn’t even have to try to figure him out. Hux just _knows_. 

But Supreme Leader Snoke will know, too, when Hux kneels before him and confesses his failures in his battle with the Light. General Solo’s word will only go so far in Hux’s defence...and if the Supreme Leader looks inside Hux’s mind and sees his true loyalties, sees this union with Ben that the Force has given them...

“Are you really going to keep this…us…a secret from the Supreme Leader?” Ben tries to hide the strain in his voice. “Won’t he see it in your mind? He won’t look at me. He doesn’t care about anything in my head. But he’ll look at every memory of yours.”

Hux sits up on his elbows, evaluating Ben with a twitch of his flushed nose. “Of course I’ll hide this, General. Snoke doesn’t want my personal interests interfering with his orders. But my power is far greater than my master’s. Surely you don’t underestimate me, not after the battles you’ve seen me win. The Galaxy will be mine,” he says crisply, like it’s a foregone conclusion. Perhaps he’s seen his destiny in visions.

Satisfied with Hux’s answer, Ben turns on his side in bed, then on his back. He pulls Hux onto him, so Hux can rest his head on Ben’s chest. Hux glances up at him, looking almost embarrassed at being held in Ben’s arms.

Ben decides to embarrass him more, with a teasing line. “I’m one of your personal interests?”

To Ben’s surprise, Hux hesitates, as though he’s thinking the question over, deciding how much he should say.

“I find you interesting, at least.”

It’s an understated string of words, delivered lightly. But when Hux glances up at Ben, his eyes—usually wild with Force-torment and suppressed chaos—are calm now, full, at last, of an impossible, irrevocable devotion.

Ben doesn’t question it. After all, he’s not meant to question anything. That’s for Hux, who plumbs the depths of the mystic realm to understand the Dark Side. Ben Solo may be a General of the First Order, but in the end, he’s only another soldier, made to follow orders and to serve.

But soon he’ll be Supreme Leader Hux’s soldier, and perhaps, one day, something more. They’ll suffer military losses, take on scars, but the Galaxy will remain. A web of light and dark, a starlit cloak of space to reach out and claim, to wrap around themselves until their power is as unassailable as their...whatever it is he shares with Hux.

Ben laughs at himself for his New Republic sentimentality. This is the First Order, he reminds himself, because he almost said _love_.

**Author's Note:**

> It took me two months to write this, when I usually finish a fic in two to three days. I wanted setup/backstory, I wanted a scene with Hux in battle, and I wanted smut. In the end, I managed two and a half out of three...which leaves room for a next time. Praise for KPW prompts and deadlines (and encouragement from [surrenderer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/pseuds/surrenderer)), or this fic would be in the graveyard for sure.
> 
> Real role reversal would be if I finally wrote bottom!Kylo. But, while I have nothing against bottom!Kylo...Hux wasn’t ready to top. Even with the Force at his command, he’s still a pillow prince.
> 
> Here I am on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sternfleck) and [tumblr](https://sternfleck.tumblr.com/).


End file.
